HTC-Apple stand-off continues, HTC ready to defend
After Apple filed a law suit against HTC on their patent rights, the wireless carrier has said that Apple is trying to show their dominance and HTC has vowed to fight back.
"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible," Peter Chou, chief executive at HTC, said in a statement posted on the company's Web site.
This was in return of the suit filed by Apple in the U.S. District Court in Delaware alleging HTC of infringing on the patents issue for about 20 times. Apple also wrote a petition to the United States International Trade Commission to bar the import of 12 phones which were manufactured by HTC as it thinks that those phones were sheer violation of the patent law. Apple has also given the file of patents in its lawsuit in Delaware. Most of them get in the iPhone hardware, its underlying architecture, and interface.
However, Chou insisted that, “from day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smart phone." HTC shipped its first touch-screen smart phone in 2002, and has since more than 50 additional smart phones since then,” he added.
Google’s Android operating system is there in HTC's new touch-screen phones and also includes the Droid Eris and The Google Nexus One. Meanwhile, Apple has demanded the court to block importing of the HTC Touch Pro, the Touch Diamond, the Touch Pro2, the Tilt 2, the Pure, the Imagio, the Dream/T-Mobile G1, the my Touch 3G, the Hero, and the HD2.
Apple, meanwhile, didn’t file a lawsuit against Google. However, this has not gone down well with Google and they have said "though we are not a party to this lawsuit, but we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it".
According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, they sued HTC because it refuses to accept that they are using Apple’s patented technology.
"We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours," Jobs said.
"HTC has always taken a partnership-oriented, collaborative approach to business," Jason Mackenzie, vice president of HTC America countered. "This has led to long-standing strategic partnerships with the top software, Internet and wireless technology companies in the industry as well as the top U.S., European and Asian mobile operators."
"It is through these relationships that we have been able to deliver the world's most diverse series of smart phones to an even more diverse group of people around the world, recognizing that customers have very different needs," Mackenzie added.
